Although the "summer offensive" of the Ukrainian military has come to a complete standstill, the pressure on the Ukrainian front line is still unabated. According to frontline correspondents, after Russia intensified its offensive in Avadiivka and Maryinka in October, the Ukrainian side hastily organized its defense forces and urgently needed the support of a large number of soldiers and equipment. Ukraine** Zelensky has gone to the United States and European countries to lobby for military aid to arrive as soon as possible, but the issue of conscription has become a major problem. Not so long ago, Kiev removed all the heads of conscription offices in the country from their posts on suspicion of corruption and helping people evade military service.
At the same time, the American media "New York Times" also published a rare article exposing some "forced incidents" that occurred in Ukraine during the conscription process and refuting Ukraine's actions from a neutral position. At the beginning of the article, it was mentioned that the head of the Ukrainian intelligence service, Budanov, was very unoptimistic about the current conscription situation, because in the first six months of the conflict, Ukraine conscripted almost all those who wanted to fight, and now most of them have no desire to fight. The newly drafted soldiers could not fight for various reasons, and even many considered it "not their own war."
Therefore, when it is not possible to do so "voluntarily", the authorities try to replenish the supply of troops in their own way. The US media revealed that the methods of conscription by the Ukrainian authorities are not limited to pulling men off the streets, forcing people who are not fit to serve in the war, and using force to intimidate them to take them to the conscription. The article cites several examples of Yefimenko, a shopkeeper with a broken arm, who was forcibly dragged into a car and kidnapped by several unidentified men while visiting a doctor, and then managed to escape from the conscription office at night — he was one of the lucky ones, most of the missing men have not been heard from.
The New York Times interviewed more than two dozen lawyers and families of soldiers for this article, corroboring the fact that "violent recruitment" does exist in Ukraine, classifying it as legal ambiguity, brutal fighting, growing numbers, and corruption. However, a question that all walks of life are more concerned about is: whether the United States, which was very supportive of the Ukrainian side before, has now begun to expose the shady incident of the Ukrainian army's conscription, which represents the collective turn of the "upper class" in the United States and brought about a change in the United States. Combined with the tens of billions of dollars bill that the United States has shirked aid to Ukraine for various reasons, everything is not "friendly" to Ukraine.
Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Zaluzhny expressed dissatisfaction with the issue of conscription, believing that Zelensky had changed the head of the conscription department too hastily. Zaluzhny noted that the former head was experienced and able to effectively recruit new recruits, while the current head is not professional and has caused problems for the Ukrainian conscription operation. Some commentators have pointed out that Zelenskyy's "perpetual motion machine" relies on Western military aid and financial support, as well as young people at home, and that the combination of the two can shape the image of Ukraine as resolutely resisting Russia.
However, now that Western support is no longer funded, and the conscription scandal in Ukraine has made Zelensky look like he has been "betrayed" completely. It is worth mentioning that Zelensky's move to remove the head of the conscription office also caused dissatisfaction in Zaluzhny.